Tracy, 15,  is on her way to becoming a business success. Here she recruits another student, Marina, to work in her new company.

(Warning: Using this scene without permission is illegal, as is reproducing it on a website or in print in any way.)

(Marina's home. There's a "Foreclosure Sale" sign on the front lawn. The house has been vandalized. Tracy knocks on Marina's door. Marina answers.)

MARINA: In case you missed all the "signs," we're not buying anything.

TRACY: I'm really sorry about your father.

MARINA: Why do you care? We were never friends.

TRACY: I think you're really talented.

MARINA: Sorry we got kicked out of the country club?

TRACY: Not so much. But I was told I'm not exactly country club material.

MARINA: You're not.  (Beat.) But neither am I. Not anymore. Apparently.

(Tracy and Marina share a laugh.)

So why are you here?

TRACY: Business proposition. The downside, long hours. Upside, performance-based stock options.

MARINA: Stock options! My father lost everybody's money in the stock market.

TRACY: I know. But he also made people a lot of money, right?

MARINA: Everybody sure loved him then. People forget investments are a risk. It says so in the fine print.

TRACY: Here's your chance. Chance of a lifetime. Chance to make it big. Chance sounds so much more enchanting than risk, doesn't it?

MARINA: Very much so. And safer. Confident. Self-assured.

TRACY: And yet, there are no guarantees in life.

MARINA: Do you believe my father's innocent? The truth.

TRACY: I honestly don't know. I don't know enough. Sorry.

MARINA: I suppose that's fair. We weren't exactly friends. More like frenemies.

TRACY: Please, Marina. Truth, you hated me.

MARINA: You were such a goody-goody-two shoe overachiever. How could anyone compete? You should've gotten a "D" every now and then. Then I would've liked you.

TRACY: Even when you think it's safe to do nothing, it's a risk. Even when day after day, you do your best, your absolute best to make someone proud, make someone love you, one day you go home, and it's gone. Your mother's stopped. Loving. You.

MARINA: One day, you're belle of the ball, homecoming queen, and the envy spans all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, and the next day, you find out your father is being sued for fraud and total strangers want to spit on you. And do.

TRACY: The money you thought was earmarked for college—

MARINA: Or starting your own design firm—

TRACY/MARINA: Kaput. Gone.

MARINA: Stock options, huh? What company?

TRACY: Our company. Banking on us.

MARINA: You're putting a lot of faith in someone that hated your guts.

TRACY: It is definitely a risk.

MARINA: Or, a "chance of a lifetime."

TRACY: I'm enchanted, aren't you? What have we got to lose? I don't want to die like this, do you?

MARINA: Would this make you my boss?

TRACY: It would.

MARINA: What am I designing?

TRACY: Style for geeks.

(Tracy models her plain black computer bag)

MARINA: How stylish. Not. I wouldn't be seen with a geek.

TRACY: Even more reason to give that geek some style. Even geeks deserve some style and respect, especially when we rule the world, don't you think?

MARINA: I'm not especially fond of geeks. Few people are.

TRACY: We can change all that. You can change all that.

MARINA: Give me the fine print.

TRACY: Besides being your...shush...underage boss and hiring someone whose father may be headed for prison? It's quite scandalous as is, don't you think?

MARINA: Oh my god, you're one those annoying prodigies who skipped a grade—

TRACY: Or two.

MARINA: So, the worst thing that can happen is...we lose our house?

TRACY: We lose sight of our future.

MARINA: I can see now how some of us need to take more chances than others.

TRACY: Even if you turn me down, swear to me you'll carry this secret to the grave. Honor code.

MARINA: I swear I'm no rat. A jury could very well find my father guilty. Condemn him as a white-collar criminal. The evidence is rather overwhelmingly against him.

TRACY: We are not responsible for our parents' actions. I tell this to myself every morning so I can get out of bed.

MARINA: Did you get that from a book?

TRACY: (Chuckles:) Actually, I did.

MARINA: Why should we put ourselves on the line? Why is it our responsibility to save our parents? Our selves?

TRACY: It's either go big, or go home, and which one of us wants to go home?  What home?

(End of Act I.)